1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to management of communication networks, and in particular to a system for connecting multiple devices and transmitting high throughput data between the devices.
2. Related Art
Telecommunication systems continue to evolve and expand their presence in modern society. As an example, wireless networking has grown in popularity as a result of the improvements in portable computers (i.e., laptop computers), wireless technology, broadband access to the Internet, network gaming, and a growing popularity to network computer systems together into local area networks (“LANs”) for both business and consumer applications. The most popular types of wireless networks for connecting multiple computers are at present configured utilizing the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (“IEEE”) 802.11 standard, which are generally known as a “802.11 networks,” “Wireless Fidelity networks,” “Wi-Fi networks,” or “WiFi networks.”
Generally, an 802.11 network includes at least two communication devices in signal communication with each other via a wireless signal path. An Access Point (“AP”) acts as a communication hub for the plurality of wireless communication devices to connect into a wireless LAN (“WLAN”) or into a wired LAN if the communication device is in signal communication with the wired LAN. The wireless communication devices are generally known as “802.11 clients,” “clients,” “client devices,” “stations” (“STAs”), “802.11 stations,” and/or “802.11 STAs.” Additionally, when STAs are in signal communication with an AP, it is referred to as infrastructure mode.
With the maturing of the different amendments of the baseline standard (such as, for example, IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g) for 802.11 networks, there is an increasing interest in home networking to enable users to enjoy the ubiquitous availability of digital content that a home network provides. In these networks, many forms of data may be exchanged between the network devices including, for example, voice, financial and business information, digital content, audio and/or visual (“AV”) material, and email, to name a few. Much of this information, such AV material, generally requires that large amounts of data be transmitted across the network and home networks typically operate in infrastructure mode.
Unfortunately, if two IEEE 802.11 clients attempt to exchange data between one another in infrastructure mode, data is exchanged through the AP where the data is first sent from the first client to the AP and then the AP retransmits the data to the second client. This may cause data between clients to take twice as long or utilize twice as much throughput.
As an example in FIG. 1, a block diagram of an example of an implementation of a known network architecture 100 for data transfer between client devices utilizing the 802.11 standard is shown. As mentioned above, in infrastructure networks, the 802.11 standard requires that data transfer occur between an AP and a client device. As an example, the known network architecture 100 may include Device A 102, Device B 104, and Device C 106. In this example, Device C 106 is in signal communication with both Device A 102 and Device B 104 via signal paths 108 and 110, respectively. Additionally, Device C 106 may function as an AP, and Device A 102 and Device B 104 may function as STAs where Device A 102 functions as a media server and Device B 104 functions as a media render. Generally, a media server is device, or software module, that processes multimedia applications such as, for example, AV streaming, still image storage, and music streaming programs. A media render is a device, or software module, that is capable of receiving and processing data from the media server.
In an example of operation, if Device A 102 is to transmit data to Device B 104, the data is first transmitted from Device A 102 to Device C 106, via signal path 108, and then retransmitted from Device C 106 to Device B 104 via signal path 110. While this arrangement is functional it is not efficient since it takes approximately twice as long to transmit data from Device A 102 to Device B 104 through Device C 106 than it would to directly transmit the data from Device A 102 to Device B 104. Unfortunately, this generally reduces the total throughput in a shared medium transmission system such as a 802.11 network by approximately half.
Attempted solutions to this problem include an IEEE 802.11e amendment that includes a Direct Link Setup (“DLS”) functionality that allows data transfer to be setup directly between clients. In FIG. 2, a block diagram of an example of an implementation of the traditional network architecture 200 utilizing the proposed IEEE 802.11e DLS functionality for data transfer between clients is shown. As an example, the known network architecture 200 may include Device A 202, Device B 204, and Device C 206. In this example, Device C 206 is in signal communication with both Device A 202 and Device B 204 via signal paths 208 and 210, respectively. Additionally, Device A 202 and Device B 204 may be in signal communication via signal path 212. Similar to FIG. 1, in this example, Device C 206 may function as an AP, and Device A 202 and Device B 204 may function as STAs where Device A 202 functions as a media server and Device B 204 functions as a media render.
In an example of operation, if Device A 202 is to transmit to Device B 204 utilizing IEEE 802.11e DLS (or similar proposals), Device A 202 negotiates with Device C 206 in order to setup a connection with Device B 204. Device C 206 then negotiates a connection with Device B 204 and after negotiation, Device A 202 transmits data directly to Device B 204 without passing through Device C 206. Therefore, in this example, Device C 206, acting as an AP, must be utilized by both Device A 202 and Device B 204 to communicate to each other even if the communication is going to be only between Device A 202 and Device 204.
While under certain circumstances data transmission may be more efficient than the process described in FIG. 1, it unfortunately requires that all three communicating devices on the network implement the new DLS functionality. This is unlikely in a typical scenario because there are approximately about 100 million 802.11 devices that have already been deployed in the field without DLS functionality. Therefore, there is a need for a system and method to transmit data between client devices with high overall throughput and low latency that is backward compatible with existing network devices.